I'd Rather We Didn't
by M.L. Shards
Summary: Adam gives Kira a ride back to Reefside.


I don't own Power Rangers, enough said

Please Review

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She leaned her head against the car's window and watched the trees go by in a blur of brown and deep green. It was nearly midnight and the cup of coffee she'd had back at Hartford's house (if you could call something that big a house) had long since worn out its' caffeine supply. Stupid Sentinel Knight, teleporting them to Stonehenge and then refusing to teleport them back… stupid Andrew Hartford and Operation Overdrive for refusing to use the S.H.A.R.C. to take them home… though they had been nice enough to lend them this car to drive back in…

Figuring out what to do with Bridge had been the hardest. Mr. Hartford said he'd take care of it, so they'd left him at the mansion, and Alpha had been turned off and placed in the trunk in order to avoid then having to explain why they had a robot with them if for some reason they got pulled over.

It was late and Kira was tired, but luckily Reefside wasn't that far away from their current position. She wished she could have gone with Tori. The Blue Ranger had simply ninja streaked back to Blue Bay (oh, how she wished she had that power instead of sonic scream sometimes) but if Kira tried to go with her, she probably would have broken her neck.

They'd dropped Xander off in Briarwood hours earlier and since then there had been silence between her and the driver.

She turned her head to glance over at him. He stared ahead at the dark road and Kira let out a sigh before she could stop herself. Adam wasn't an old, teacher guy like Dr. O was, he wasn't all "bravo leader-ish", he was quiet but had such a presence, an aura about him… she found herself unable to not treat him as a leader.

She tilted her head to the side to study his profile carefully. He had dark eyes, soft features, slightly Asian looking, and short dark hair, slightly disheveled from the many times he'd run his fingers through it in the past few hours; he looked so young age wise, but carried himself as someone who had been mature for his age for a long time. She couldn't figure out how the two could work together so well, but they did on him. She thought back to the battle, when she'd first been introduced to him, he looked so shy but as soon as he was in the field and as soon as he had a mission, he was a completely different person, with a strength and leadership ability that could rival Dr. O's. He could really kick ass if he wanted to and he knew it.

He looked pretty good in black spandex too…

She winced. Had she really just been thinking that? The slight change in her facial features caught his attention and his dark eyes flickered over to her for a brief moment, before turning back to the road.

"You okay?" He asked and Kira found herself nearly swooning at the sound of his voice. She shook her head numerous times; she didn't feel like that around guys, even ones she liked. When she'd been dating Trent she'd never swooned and she was determined to not start now.

"Just a little… weirded out by everything still…" She replied with a weak smile, hoping he believed it.

Adam raised his eyebrows for half a second and nodded. "Understandable."

There was another silence that Kira wasn't so comfortable with this time. "So…" She began, mind trying to formulate something to ask. "Are you married?" She winced again… Oh, her and her stupid brain, not connecting to her motor functions in time to save her from embarrassment….

Adam looked over at her and gave her a bit of a weird look before shaking his head. "Uh, no…"

"Why not?" Kira blurted out again. Okay, she needed more coffee before Adam kicked her out of the car for being too strange…

Adam shrugged. "Because you need someone to get married to?" He said lightly and Kira felt herself excited by the prospect.

"No girlfriend?" She probed unsure as to why she really cared. She was sure the age difference was enough to turn Adam off the idea of ever dating her.

Adam shifted uncomfortably, not quite sure why he was sharing this with her. "Uh, no, it's a little hard when there are gaps in my life I can't tell most people…"

"Ah," Kira remarked slowly. "Gotcha."

There was another few minutes of silence as the continued down the road. Adam looked at the clock and let out a groan. He was tired and he could tell the Yellow Ranger was not going to be able to take over driving; she looked just as exhausted as he felt.

She leaned her head against the window and Adam smiled. Her dirty blonde hair fell over the side of her face and she pulled on her shirt, tugging the sleeves down. "Are you cold?" He asked, admiring how the shadows created patterns on her porcelain face.

Kira shrugged. "Not really," But then she had an idea. "I guess I'm just used to having something like a blanket over me when I'm trying to sleep..."

"Well, my track jacket is in the back if you want to use that." Adam offered and he saw the sides of Kira's mouth twitch upwards. She quickly turned around and searched through the back until she found it, pulling it up and around her like a blanket.

"Thanks," she replied, snuggling up to the side of the car and inhaling the scent of the black jacket as subtly as she could. She hoped she didn't look like a stalker or something… It smelt nice, kind of spicy and tangy, she wasn't sure why though, since she doubted he was wearing cologne. She felt herself near swooning again, but fought it back enough to avoid embarrassing herself.

"No problem…" Adam replied, though she noted he seemed a bit distracted, looking out at the road intently. "So what about you?"

"Hmmm?" Kira asked lazily.

"Significant other?"

At this, Kira found herself wide awake. Had he just asked that? Really? She felt the logical side of her mind telling her that he was trying to make conversation and playing off of what she had asked… but then she told the logical side of her brain to shut up and let her have her moment of excitement.

As casual as she could manage, she shook her head. "No, I don't."

"I find that hard to believe."

Unconsciously she pulled the jacket around her tightly. Oh… this was too good to be true… She was quite happy to see the logical side of her brain had decided to continue to be quiet while she basked in the glow if this remark. "Well, thank you…" She replied. "But you know, the whole trying to be a recording artist, there is only so much time in a day and a lot of guys don't stick around."

Adam chuckled a bit. "Yeah, one of my ex-girlfriend's… Tanya, one of the nicest people you'll ever meet. She wanted to be a singer, I mean, we broke up not long after college, but for a while I barely saw her."

Kira felt a tinge of disappointment. "You broke up with her because of it?"

Adam shook his head. "No, we were just going in opposite directions and decided to stay friends. I still talk to her and all. She was a Zeo and Turbo Ranger with me."

"Yellow?" Kira asked, not quite sure why. She already knew Dr. O had been dating the pink one, and that yellow was the only colour left.

"Yeah, she was kind of like you actually, singer, yellow, smart, strong, attractive…" Adam said, then winced and Kira found herself grinning. She wasn't the only one who was having a problem controlling what they were saying. "Sorry, got carried away…"

"Oh no, do go on." Kira replied happily. He'd said she was attractive, and apparently he had nothing against the recording star type. Suddenly the age difference thing didn't seem like a huge obstacle anymore. "I'm all for compliments."

Adam frowned. "I didn't mean to-"

Kira shook her head, sure that she probably looked like a fish the way her eyes were wide open. She quickly blinked, hoping to remedy that. "No it's okay."

Adam glanced over at the Yellow Ranger with a weird look, as if he didn't really believe her. "We can pretend I didn't just say that."

"I'd rather we didn't." Kira replied then let out a sigh as she weighed her options. Okay, he still stayed friends with his ex-girlfriend, she was sure if she spilled her guts out, that maybe they could stay friends too and then she could stop making up fantasy scenarios in her head and the ride back to Reefside could be a little less tense. If he said n and if she gained enough sympathy from it she might even convince him to let her have the jacket… She did have a cell phone incase Adam kicked her out of the car at the side of the road, but her logical side had decided to kick in again and remind her that Adam was way too nice to do something like that. "Okay, this is going to be weird…" She said, inhaling deeply before she spoke "um… I like you?"

Adam nearly swerved the car into a ditch, but proceeded to correct and just pull off to the shoulder of the road, stopping the car and turning it off. Two silver SUVs passed by, one honked at them, but neither really paid attention to it.

He looked over at her as if she had just sprouted another head. "What?"

"I like you." Kira said as slowly as she could, trying to omit the tone that had made it sound like a question before. "I mean… you're really nice and cute and we have a lot in common." She paused. "Okay, I actually have no clue if we have anything in common since I really just met you with the whole Thrax thing, but I mean we're both rangers… so I suppose that's one thing in common. I don't have any issues with the age thing and-" She stopped again. "Yeah, I'm going to be quiet now…"

There was an awkward silence in the car that seemed to last forever. They seemed to have a lot of those on this car ride, and Kira wished that Hartford had provided some sort of music for them to listen to or that Tori had come in the car as well because then she wouldn't be in this situation in the first place…

Finally the Black Ranger broke the silence, rubbing the back of his neck with his hand and letting out a mumbled. "Tommy is going to shoot me."

"We can pretend I didn't just say that?" Kira attempted, unsure of what exactly the muffled statement had implied.

Adam swallowed awkwardly, looking out the window, as if expecting Thrax to be standing there, but he wasn't and there was nothing to cut off the rather awkward conversation. "Well… " He began hesitantly. "I'd rather we didn't."


End file.
